


take the bed warmed by the body

by tenderjock



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Whump, who am i kidding this is literally just g-rated fluff dressed up as a story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderjock/pseuds/tenderjock
Summary: Illya Kuryakin and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo/Gaby Teller, various configurations of these three
Comments: 16
Kudos: 98





	take the bed warmed by the body

**Author's Note:**

> this is less of a fic and more of the idea of a fic. anyway, i kind of liked how it turned out, so i decided to share it. this is the first thing i've written for tmfu, which feels ... incorrect? but it's true. here goes nothing.

The water was cold.

It was January in the Swiss alps; of course it was cold. The thin sheet of ice, black and silver in the moonlight, was crushed into a starburst of glittering shards. Willow trees bent their boughs down over the water’s edge.

It was a beautiful night, for someone who hadn’t been shot, strangled, and was currently drowning.

Illya’s breath had been knocked out of his lungs when he hit the water. For a long second that seemed like an eternity, the cold penetrated every inch of his body, from his toes to the roots of his hair. It was everywhere; it was everything. He couldn’t think. His limbs shook and he flailed in the dark, cold, wet.

His hand touched hard ice, above him, and his survival training rushed back. He had no breath left to hold, but that didn’t matter. The way out was up, and he could work with that.

After a moment of scrabbling, Illya found the hole that he had entered the icy lagoon in. He tugged his blackjack out of its holster and hooked it into the ice above him. Using it for leverage, he pulled himself out of the water and onto flat, wet ice. There was an ominous crack. Illya returned his blackjack to his vest and carefully – carefully – wriggled on his belly to the shore.

His hands shook, from equal parts cold and fury. At least the numbness meant he couldn’t feel the wound in his side anymore.

Illya tromped the last ten feet to shore through frozen mud and reeds. Up the hillside, tasteful lanterns helpfully lit the path up to the house. In the distance, Illya could see the silhouettes of the professor’s guests, backlit by yellow light. They were in the ballroom, on the second floor. There was a balcony outside the room’s only window.

Despite the pain, and the cold, and the fury, Illya smiled.

: :

“This is the end,” the professor said. “The end, I tell you!”

Solo managed not to roll his eyes. He caught Gaby’s gaze from the other side of the room. She shook her head; she hadn’t heard from Illya either. Peril’s absence was bothering Solo more than the professor’s doomsday speech.

Once he’d heard one doomsday speech, he’d heard them all. There wasn’t much to improve upon.

Waverly held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Now, Professor Wright –”

The professor shook his head. He had started foaming at the mouth, like a rabid dog. The part of Solo that wasn’t waiting for Illya to show briefly concerned itself with hoping that whatever the professor had wasn’t catching.

“Enough,” the professor said. “There is no escaping this, your fate, your  _ destiny _ . I’ve taken care of the Russian –”

Across the room, Gaby did a full-body flinch. It was sloppy; no one was supposed to know that the three of them even knew each other. She should have had little to no reaction.

Little to no reaction, Solo tells himself. It’s suddenly hard to breathe.

“He won’t be a problem,” the professor continued. “He is, as you Americans say,  _ sleeping with the fishes _ .”

Little to no reaction. Solo knew his face was doing something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Gaby, across the room from him, covered her mouth with a hand like she was going to throw up. Waverly glanced, very quickly, between the two of them.

“Well,” Waverly said, in that affable way of his. “It appears you have us at a disadvantage.” He smiled, a bit, but even on Waverly it looked forced.

On the balcony, behind the professor, something moved. Solo inhaled, abrupt, and forced his eyes to focus on the professor and not the large, sodden figure hoisting itself over the railing.

The balcony doors were locked, but that’s never stopped Illya before. He crashed through in a spray of glass. There’s blood on his face, in his teeth that he’s baring like a wild animal, and on the gun that he’s holding to the back of the professor’s head. The professor had gone very still. After a moment, he turned around.

Illya pressed the barrel of his gun to the professor’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

He let out a noise like a growl and pistol-whipped the professor across the face. The man fell, stunned, and Solo leapt forward to put some cuffs on him. Once that was done, he straightened and regarded Illya, who was still standing with his gun hand extended and that feral grin still on his face.

“Peril,” Solo started, then swallowed hard. Illya’s eyes flicked over to him. After a moment, Illya shook himself like a dog and took a step back, stumbling with it. Solo reached out, caught his waist. The poor man was ice cold and soaking wet. When Solo pulled his hand away from Illya’s side, there was something red and sticky on his fingers.

“Doctor,” Solo said, more to himself than anything. Then: “Doctor!”

Illya shook himself again and opened his mouth. A noise like a low whine came out. Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed. Solo managed to catch him on the way down. Gaby was there, too, at his shoulder.

“Doctor!” she cried. Solo cradled Illya to his chest, bowed his head over him until their foreheads touched. Illya was still, and cold, and bleeding, and so, so still.

“C’mon, Peril,” he whispered. There was no response. Solo squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the doctor.

: :

Dr. Cormier was everything that a doctor should be, in Illya’s mind: quick, quiet, efficient, and above all discreet. He didn’t demand that Illya take morphine, just stripped him out of his wet clothes, plunked him in front of the fire, and calmly began stitching up his side.

Solo was pacing across the room, back and forth. It was starting to make Illya’s head hurt.

“Peril,” he said, then stopped. He took a slug of brandy out of the snifter he had poured himself. Gaby had gone with Waverly, to secure the professor and his staff of THRUSH agents, and to sooth the other guests at the party. Before going, she had placed a kiss upon his nose. Illya would have blushed, had he the frame of mind to do anything other than sit still and breathe.

Solo remained with Illya. He appeared quite distraught, although Illya couldn’t fathom why. They were all fine; besides a few stitches in his side and a deep chill, he had nothing much wrong with him.

“Am fine,” Illya said. “Give me your drink.” Solo handed the brandy over without complaint, which spoke volumes about how upset he was. Illya took a sip, letting the alcohol burn settle him. The doctor’s stitching hurt, of course, but it was a manageable hurt. Compartamentable. Compartable? Illya didn’t know the word in English.

Solo reached out like he was going to touch Illya’s cheek. At the last second, he froze, and took his hand back. Illya closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the look on Napoleon’s face.

“Cowboy,” he said, forcing a smile. Solo didn’t smile back. Illya’s hair kept dripping ice water drops into his eyes, and he was reluctant to disturb the doctor enough to swipe them away. “You really thought I could be killed by  _ Englishmen _ ?”

“Well,” Waverly said, picking the perfect moment to come back to the room. “I rather take offense to that, but I do see what you mean, Kuryakin.” Then, directed to the doctor: “How is he looking?”

“To be perfectly honest,” Dr. Cormier said, “I would have expected a lot more moaning from him.”

“Am Russian,” Illya said.

“Perhaps that accounts for it,” Cormier said. “Either way, he will need for the stitches to be removed in about five, six days. He should rest until then. As for the chill, he will need hot soup and tea, and to be kept quite warm. The liquids should help the throat, as well.”

“The throat?” Gaby asked. She had followed Waverly and was now standing next to him. She appeared entirely unaware or uncaring of the blood smeared all over her white designer gown.

Solo reached out and, with just the tips of his fingers, tilted Illya’s head back at the chin. Gaby’s eyes went wide. Illya didn’t have a mirror, but he could feel the damage that the rope had done around his neck. He imagined that the bruising was very severe.

“Oh,” Gaby said softly. She had this look on her face – a look that Solo calls the  _ mama bear  _ look. Illya took another sip of Solo’s brandy and wished, passionately, to be able to go to bed. But there was the doctor, and debriefings, and dealing with the THRUSH agents, and Illya was just so, so very tired. His side hurt and his throat hurt and while the chill was gone, he was still unpleasantly wet and muddy.

Solo took his brandy back. Illya’s mouth twitched; that was his Napoleon, right there. Waverly had stepped away with the doctor, conversing quietly. Gaby plopped herself into the doctor’s empty chair beside Illya. After a moment, she gently – very gently – laid her head on his shoulder.

“You know,” Solo said suddenly, looking up from his empty glass. He had a glint in his eye that Illya didn’t like. “You’ve been shot, strangled, drowned. I’d say –”

“No,” Illya said. Solo ignored him.

“I’d say that you’re giving Rasputin a run for his money.”

“ _ No _ ,” Illya said again, this time with feeling. Solo smiled.

“C’mon, Peril,” he said, with that tilt of his head. “Let us have our fun.”

Gaby hummed and nestled her head a little further onto Illya’s shoulder. “I think we’ve all had enough of your ‘fun,’ Solo,” she said, but she still held a hand out to him. Solo put down the snifter and allowed himself to be manhandled onto Illya’s other side.

“What,” Illya managed, before Gaby shushed him. Her eyes were slipping closed.

At some point, quietly, Waverly and the doctor had left the room. Illya was warm; he was safe; he had a roof over his head and some brandy in his stomach. He hurt, all over, but he was used to that. His partners were with him, also safe, and that – that, he was less used to.

Illya shifted a little so that Gaby’s weight would not fall on his injured side. Solo’s hair tickled his chin.

Well. As Solo said, sometimes, when he wanted to be particularly obnoxious – you could get used to anything.

Illya closed his eyes and did not smile, despite the warmth that was building in his chest that had nothing to with the fire roaring away in that still little room. Their mission was not over quite yet; in a moment, they would have to leave, and fill out paperwork, and answer questions. In a moment –

But not right now.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm tenderjock on tumblr as well; check me out there if you want to talk about p much anything.


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